The present invention relates to note-taking and more particularly to techniques for integrating various types of captured or recorded information with notes taken by a user.
Note-taking is one of the most prevalent forms of capturing information. Although there are several devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptops, etc. that are presently available for taking notes, most users still prefer to take notes on a paper medium such as a paper notebook using a marking device such as a pen or pencil. The act of note-taking is performed in several different environments including in a classroom, during a presentation, during a meeting, etc. For example, a meeting attendee may use a pen or pencil to take notes on a piece of paper to capture information presented at the meeting, a college student may take notes to capture information taught by a professor during a lecture, and the like.
The act of note-taking generally involves several functions that are performed by the note-taker. These functions include capture of the information, filtering of the information, and organization of the information. The note-taker captures a piece of information by writing it down in its entirety on the paper, or by writing down a few words that serve as a reminder or indicator of the piece of information that is of interest to the note-taker. The note-taker filters the information by only writing down parts of the information that are important to the note-taker. Finally, the notes allow the note-taker to organize the information in a manner that is personally meaningful to the note-taker.
During an information communication event such as a meeting, a lecture, a presentation, etc., information of various types may be output from one or more sources. For example, at a presentation, the information communicated may include audio information spoken by a presenter or any other attendee, audio information output by an audio output device such as a speaker, a television, etc., slides information (e.g., slides presented using Microsoft Powerpoint application), images (e.g., photographs, etc.) presented on a computer display or a screen, information written on a white board (“white board information”), video information output using a video output device such as a television, movie projector, etc., and other types of information. A person attending the presentation may take notes to capture information output by one or more of the sources. The person may be interested in capturing information at different levels of detail. For example, the person may want to capture an exact quote spoken by a presenter, or capture a slide shown on a screen, capture a figure drawn on the whiteboard, etc.
As stated above, in most instances, a person captures information during an information communication event by taking notes on a paper medium (e.g., a paper notepad) using a marking device such as a pen or pencil. In such a scenario, the level of detail of the information that the person can capture generally depends on the person's writing speed. In many instances, the person (i.e., the note-taker) may not have enough time to capture the desired information. For example, the note-taker may be able to copy only a portion of a slide before the information communication event has moved on to the next slide. Further, while copying the slide information, the note-taker may be distracted from the meeting itself and may consequently miss out on other important information communicated at the information communication event. As a result, the note-taker may not be able to capture the information that the note-taker desires to capture. Errors may also be introduced in the notes.
Meeting capture technology is designed to alleviate some of the problems faced by the note-taker. Conventional meeting capture technology provides the capability to capture various types of information communicated at an information communication event such as a meeting. For example, audio information, video information, image information, white board information, slides information, and other types of information communicated at a meeting can be captured and made available to interested users after the information communication event. However, conventional meeting capture technology does not allow a note-taker to filter, identify, or organize the captured information during the information communication event. The note-taker typically has to spend several hours after the information communication event has finished browsing through the captured information and identifying portions of the captured information that are of interest to the user. Additionally, conventional meeting capture technology does not provide a way for the note-taker to link the captured information of interest to the note-taker with the notes taken by the note-taker during the information communication event.
Accordingly, improved note-taking techniques are needed.